Edison Elementary School

Gary Moskowitz Kevin Reilly has taught at Edison Elementary School for 13 years, and he's never wanted to teach anywhere else. Reilly has always been impressed by the distinct feeling of community and family he feels every time he walks onto the campus. That "team" approach was in full effect Saturday during a "packing party," as teachers, staff, community members, friends and family began packing away school materials that will soon be moved to the school's new campus.

Judy Seckler EDISON ELEMENTARY -- Edison Elementary School gave 82 sixth-graders a taste of the great outdoors on an educational field trip to Catalina Island's Camp White's Landing. For many students, it was their first time away from home. The journey lasted from May 31 to June 2. Students were kept busy with such activities as songs around the campfire, a nighttime astronomy hike, visiting fish andsnorkeling in wet suits. They kept journals of their time on the island.

The Glendale News-Press recently visited Edison Elementary School and asked students: "What do you enjoy about playing an instrument?" "It's just nice to play an instrument." LAURA NAVAJA, 11 Glendale "When I have a party at my house, I can play for the guests." RENAROSE SARMIENTO, 10 Glendale "It's fun to hear the music and it's cool to be able to play the violin." ELIZA TURDZHYAN, 10 Glendale "It's fun because I get to listen to classical music and enjoy it. At the end we have a concert.

Parent volunteers at Edison Elementary School got into the spirit of Valentine's Day this week by making more than 600 handmade valentines for parents of Edison students. Volunteers cut and pasted pieces of pink, red and purple paper into heart-shaped cards and put a short message inside that read "Happy Valentines Day! Sending you a big hug from the Edison Family." The message was written in Armenian, Spanish and English. "This is to say to the parents that they are all important to us," said Anna Maria Reyes, a teaching assistant and community liaison at the school.

Claudia Peschiutta EDISON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL - The gift of knowledge came to the school Tuesday packed in five boxes. Third-graders at Edison were given $1,000 worth of books by the Glendale Sunrise Rotary Club, which has chosen "Youth in the Arts" as its theme for the year. Lynn Johnson, chairwoman of the Sunrise Rotary Youth Services Committee, said the group is dedicated to education and has many projects planned for the year with various elementary school classes in the city.

Darleene Barrientos The scene: Edison Elementary School's auditorium. The time: evening, indoors. The stars: every possible character imaginable, from the ugliest man on Earth to a pineapple named Jack. It was all in there as the Young Storytellers program presented "The Big Show" this month, a gut-busting finale to a six-week collaboration between 10 Edison Elementary School students and their professional screenwriter mentors. The program is in its second year at Edison, the only school to feature the program.

Gary Moskowitz Plans to convert the former Edison Elementary School into a satellite campus for Glendale High School are on hold, and the Glendale Preparatory Academy will continue to use the vacated school site next school year. Although overcrowding at Glendale High has been a concern, district officials said its enrollment has dropped in recent years. The potential costs of converting the elementary school into a campus suitable for high school students and staffing the new school makes the plan unfeasible, said Steve Hodgson, the district's chief business and financial officer.

Gary Moskowitz The six colorful buildings just across the street are nearly complete, and Edison Elementary School Principal Linda Conover can hardly wait to move into her new school. "Teachers are beginning to pack already, so we will be ready to go," Conover said. "June is actually a perfect time, just in time for the new year. To have moved mid-year would have been a major ordeal." The Edison-Pacific project, a $45-million facility to be jointly used by the city and the Glendale Unified School District, is expected to be complete in June, just in time for the beginning of the 2003-04 year-round school year.

Darleene Barrientos Cardboard boxes were steadily emptied Monday as books, notebooks, pens and pencils filled the shelves and desks of Edison Elementary School's new classrooms. Across the street from their recently emptied buildings on Lomita Avenue, Edison Principal Linda Conover said the new school didn't quite look like one while it was being built. But after a weekend of moving supplies and furniture to the new building on the Edison-Pacific complex, the teachers and administrators are slowly making the wide hallways and large, airy classrooms look more and more like an elementary school, she said.

Darleene Barrientos Although sixth-grade teacher Barbara Bull died earlier this year, local students are still benefiting from her dedication, and that of her family. Bull's twin sister, Lynn Booser, gave the Edison Elementary School educator's piano to the students at Hoover High School. The piano, which was in their family for more than 60 years, was dedicated to the school's music department Monday. Bull began teaching at Edison Elementary School in 1987 after several years in New York.

GLENDALE — Three years ago, Edison Elementary School was in a government designation for schools where academic achievement is not growing rapidly enough, or at all. Now that the campus has emerged with successful and growing academic performance, the latest iteration of Edison Elementary is what happens when parents and staff work together toward a common goal, they said. After three years of planning, meetings and organizing, the school formalized a Parent Teacher Assn.

Third-grader Damian Kim was wearing a jester’s hat and a multicolored boa around his neck, and he was shaking with terror. “Liar, liar, pants on fire,” another student shouted at Damian, part of a rehearsal for a play to be performed by the first- through third-grade enrichment class at Edison Elementary School. The line may have elicited a fearful screech from the 9-year-old, but Damian was laughing inside, he said later. “That’s my line,” Damian said, explaining that he and the other students in an after-school program had written pieces of the script together, which teacher Kim Labinger had then compiled into a cohesive script.

Kindergartners start Spanish and English study, aiming toward fluency by fifth grade.GLENDALE -- A melting pot of kindergarteners sits in groups of five or six as their instructors run through their lessons. They learn about shapes, letters, animals and words. But the instruction is in Spanish for all but 30 minutes a day when the lesson is in English. Over the next couple of years these sessions will lead to more emphasis on English, and the time spent between languages will balance out as the students get older.

The Glendale News-Press recently visited Edison Elementary School and asked students: "What do you enjoy about playing an instrument?" "It's just nice to play an instrument." LAURA NAVAJA, 11 Glendale "When I have a party at my house, I can play for the guests." RENAROSE SARMIENTO, 10 Glendale "It's fun to hear the music and it's cool to be able to play the violin." ELIZA TURDZHYAN, 10 Glendale "It's fun because I get to listen to classical music and enjoy it. At the end we have a concert.

Darleene Barrientos The scene: Edison Elementary School's auditorium. The time: evening, indoors. The stars: every possible character imaginable, from the ugliest man on Earth to a pineapple named Jack. It was all in there as the Young Storytellers program presented "The Big Show" this month, a gut-busting finale to a six-week collaboration between 10 Edison Elementary School students and their professional screenwriter mentors. The program is in its second year at Edison, the only school to feature the program.

Darleene Barrientos Although sixth-grade teacher Barbara Bull died earlier this year, local students are still benefiting from her dedication, and that of her family. Bull's twin sister, Lynn Booser, gave the Edison Elementary School educator's piano to the students at Hoover High School. The piano, which was in their family for more than 60 years, was dedicated to the school's music department Monday. Bull began teaching at Edison Elementary School in 1987 after several years in New York.

Gary Moskowitz Plans to convert the former Edison Elementary School into a satellite campus for Glendale High School are on hold, and the Glendale Preparatory Academy will continue to use the vacated school site next school year. Although overcrowding at Glendale High has been a concern, district officials said its enrollment has dropped in recent years. The potential costs of converting the elementary school into a campus suitable for high school students and staffing the new school makes the plan unfeasible, said Steve Hodgson, the district's chief business and financial officer.

Gary Moskowitz Glendale Preparatory Academy, despite losing out on more than $700,000 in state funds, looks -- and feels -- more like a "real" school this fall, school administrators said Thursday. Glendale Prep serves students in the Glendale Unified School District's year-round elementary schools who are not meeting district grade-level standards and expectations. Students who attend the school do so because they have been held back a grade or are at risk of being held back.

Josh Kleinbaum One man was recruited to help out on a community project. The other attended a meeting designed to find ways to improve the neighborhood. Neither envisioned a 10-acre community center, complete with a school, gym, library, park and playing field. Hank Scheetz and Armond Gorgorian, co-chairs of the Edison Implementation Committee that was formed nine years ago, will see nearly a decade's work come to fruition at 10 a.m. Saturday, when the city and Glendale Unified School District host a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Edison-Pacific complex at 501 S. Pacific Ave. "None of our charge was to go out and develop a community center," Scheetz said.

Joshua Pelzer The city's efforts at increasing affordable housing have netted a $55,000 grant from the state to help furnish and stock the library portion of the Edison-Pacific Project. The city received the funding as part of a state program that rewards cities for developing affordable housing consistent with their high job growth. Glendale is considered such an area because of its location in Los Angeles County, which ranked first among state counties with more than 4.8 million employed in July, according to its figures.